Or that spectacular Fab Freshman Josh Jackson – constantly touted by CBS announcers – is currently charged with destroying a female University of Kansas basketball player’s car and threatening to beat her up?

And his star player Josh Jackson – taking a cue from his role model and mentor, Bill Self – said the same thing to reporters when questioned about why he wants to beat up female basketball players: He doesn’t want to talk about something that is a distraction to what’s more important – The Big Game.

We jokingly put it this way.

What isn’t a joke is that it was a FEMALE CBS sideline reporter who was given the job to question Josh Jackson on this matter – AND SHE LET HIM OFF.

DISGUSTING.

In the state of Kansas, Bill Self has carte blanche to run rampant over the rules and the law when it comes to college basketball and the farmers don’t care what he does as long as he wins.

We saw them in the Northwestern game ignore an arm going up through the basket. And give the game to Gonzaga.

Then we saw them in the Arkansas game review the video and refuse to see what the world saw: A North Carolina hand deflect the ball causing it to go out of bounds with a minute left. Then remarkably refused to call a blatant charge on North Carolina’s next possession.

At that point we knew the fix was in. These NCAA refs are criminally irresponsible.

The NCAA and the referees always have conferences before the games. This much is known.

The favorite teams always get the favored calls.

So far, in every game in the tournament the favored team has been hit with less fouls than the underdog. Figure that one out. What are the possible odds of that happening?

Only when the underdog has undeniably taken advantage will the refs let go of the game – that is, usually.

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Why?

We always thought it was great for underdogs to win. We always thought it was the American Way for the Little Guy to battle it out and prove that guts and determination can overcome the bullies and the braggarts.

Well, welcome to the New America. In the New America they want the Big Teams to stay big and they want the winners to keep winning and they’re willing to cheat the system to keep it that way.

ESPN – wholly owned by mouse-whiskered Disney Corp. – has announced that they are not only losing viewers but also household subscribers. (Subscribers pay the cash part that for years made ESPN a cash cow for Disney.)

With that in mind, ESPN says they will be cutting on-air talent in an effort to cut costs.

Here’s what we say: ESPN will undoubtedly fire the wrong people.

For years ESPN has shown a distinctly tone-deaf ear when it comes to putting talent in front of the camera. Prime example? The goofball adenoidal broadcast host Adnan Virk. Has the voice and personality of a giraffe on coughdrops. Just who does ESPN think they’re appealing to?

The world of color commentators in college basketball is a wasteland of crotchety bald old men who suck and wheeze at the altar of teams like Duke and Kentucky. Dick Vitale weens and creens and screams till his pampers are wet. Jay Bilas does erudite like a pigeon in a pole barn. Bill Raftery’s patented shtick after a big play is a bellowing grunt like a long-constipated warthog.

ESPN and CBS stay with these bald, bellicose announcers out of lazy, obliterated habit. If you had grandfathers like this you’d long ago have pushed them in front of the crosstown bus.

Then there’s Dan Dakich.

Dakich is the lightning rod color commentator who singularly turns a game into an event. His background as a player, coach and commentator is a string of significant diversions away from the what the public usually gets fed from the Pollyanna media elite.

During a recent Michigan State game the entire student section repeated chants of “We hate Dakich” in an attempt to distract opposing basketball players. Why? Because of some previous animated Dakich tweets he’d sent out sparring with MSU fans.

In the Ohio State/Wisconsin game he came out and laughingly stated how much he hated team mascots, and one particular mascot he wanted to “pull off his head and beat him to death with it.”

You’d never hear that from any other announcer. But who hasn’t felt that way about those obnoxious mascots?

What happened? Brutus Buckeye, the Ohio State mascot, came over behind Dakich and started a riotously great routine, giving him backrubs for love and finally sticking his finger in Dakich’s ear. The crowd – and the cameras – loved it. Along with Dakich.

He knows basketball and pulls out the minutiae that make a game more interesting while educating the viewers. And when he goes off on tangents they’re almost always funny. (Very much unlike Dick Vitale who during one game drifted off to talk on and on about football till his partner embarrassingly pulled him back.)

So, thanks to Dan Dakich for really bringing the color back into the color commentator.

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Oh, and for those who don’t know, Dakich, playing for Bob Knight’s Hoosiers, single-handedly shut down Michael Jordan in the 1984 NCCA tourney in a masterly defensive effort that introduced the world to his patented “Dakich Defensive Duck Stance.” (Oddly, it never caught on.)

Jordan was so embarrassed by Dakich that he quit college ball and took off for the NBA, where he knew defense was actively discouraged.

Update: It’s February 25 2017 and there are already more transgressions by Kansas ballplayers. Arrests and new reports – one of which involves a player repeatedly beating a girlfriend – and Kansas coach Bill Self has stood tall in denying and obfuscating the criminal behavior of his wards.

Self has refused to suspend or even offer the mildest of punishments toward his players.

Meanwhile, media outlets are pouring out loving stories of Kansas’ phenomenal success this season…at what price?

Yes, while ESPN provides constant blanket promos of the Saturday Kansas vs Kentucky basketball matchup, nowhere do you hear the Disney company say anything about the 5 Kansas ball players involved in the December rape of a 16 year old girl that took place in the Kansas basketball campus dormitory.

While the Kansas police drag their feet on the investigation Kansas basketball coach Bill Self is incredulously blaming the media for the alleged crime. Self has apparently decided that the rape of an underage minor in which his star players were interviewed as witnesses is not something to be concerned about – no, rather, it’s a “distraction” from the real business of Kansas basketball.

The Kansas ball coach, by blaming the media, has taken the playbook from President Trump.

Coach Self has professed a “see no evil” position. The coach has even refused to question his own players because – well, in legal terms, once he is made aware of a problem then he is made liable.

Face it: College athletics has become a despicable business.

Louisville’s coach Rick Pitino has professed that just because his assistant coach ran a stripper/prostitute recruiting program at the basketball dorm that he’s not responsible because, he claims, plausible deniability.

These coaches have taken the criminal defense route while reaping $millions with the wins their young men provide, while ignoring the criminal behavior taking place under their noses.

And the Walt Disney Corp., owners of ESPN, think they’re a “family” business. Why do they blatantly promote criminal operations while making heroes of those within these criminal operations?

1. ESPN is owned by The Walt Disney Company, a corporation that rakes in $52 Billion dollars every year and is only interested in making many more billions of dollars.

2. ESPN makes a habit of promoting the most powerful sports’ interests.

The latest example would be their blatant Duke/Louisville basketball commercials where they make a hero out of Duke’s creepy, cheating Grayson Allen. Does it matter to ESPN that Allen has been repeatedly kicking hitting opponents and is despised by most Americans who value sportsmanship?

No. ESPN wants to make this creep a hero.

3. The number one mantra of every good American should be: “Question Authority.” ESPN will never question authority because they are invested in the status quo.

See a bad call on the football field or on the ball court? ESPN announcers rarely question referees’ or officials’ calls. Questioning authority upsets the status quo. Even though all of America sees what is unfair, ESPN people are blind.

4. ESPN lies by omission.

Before Alabama woefully lost to Clemson in the national championship game, ESPN already crowned Alabama the champ, reporting countless stories and video feeds promoting the invulnerability of the Alabama football team.

Whoops!

Then after Clemson kicked Alabama’s butt in the championship game ESPN practically ignored the results and ignored Clemson’s victory.

Why?

Because ESPN owns the SEC Network where Alabama plays. It is in ESPN’s financial interest to promote Alabama.

Clemson? ESPN won’t make money off Clemson. So they ignore them.

Everyone’s up on fake news. How about “fake non-news?”

5. These “Takeaway” things are just plain silly so make up your own for this last one…

PS: Dan Dakich and Kirk Herbstreit are the 2 exceptions at ESPN: They are both very good at what they do.

Everyone declared Alabama the National Champion of College Football before the game was even played Monday night.

Someone forgot to tell Clemson. They kicked Alabama’s butt 35-31 and left all the football pundits looking like the political geniuses who had Hillary Clinton as president.

It’s always sweet when the nation knows what’s going to happen while the national media does nothing but scream the opposite.

All season long the pundits have piled on about Alabama being the best football team. Yet Americans who watch the game knew that was far from true.

The laughable ESPN has for weeks planted headline-worthy stories crowning Alabama as champions; How many Americans know ESPN runs the SEC Network that ‘Bama represents? It is in ESPN’s financial interest to push ‘Bama as national champion, and that was what they did with all their sloppy journalistic might.

The New York Times had innumerable articles fronting ‘Bama as the leading team of America.